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Author on twitter.'What are the 'potentials and needs for current and future-oriented "reformations"?'

Feminist movement
advances on many fronts. I’ve visited many progressive spaces in the west, and
discovered men taking sexism seriously. If somebody says, “there are sexist
dynamics in this group”, it’s common to find at least one or two men in the
group whose first reaction is humility rather than defensiveness.

Humility is a great place to work from. From a position of humility, I can pay
attention to the experience of others, start to undo my sexist programming, and
build new habits that bring my behaviour in line with my values.

However, to challenge patriarchy, I believe we need more than humility: we need
courage too. I want to hear the voices of men, boldly explaining to other men
how everyone would be better off without patriarchy.

I have heard many stories from women and trans people’s experience of
patriarchy: personal stories of oppression and resistance.
Cis men have personal experiences of patriarchy, but we’re not sharing our
stories. How does it feel to be raised to dominate others? How did you overcome
the guilt and shame of your complicity? How do you challenge your friends’
sexism and still have friends? How does it feel to carry around this heavy
fragile mask of strength all day?

I know similar conversations
are happening in “men’s groups”, but I’m hungry to connect those conversations
to feminist theory, and then to the feminist movement.

As Carol Hanisch explained
in 1969, the
personal becomes political when we 1) identify patterns in our individual
experiences, 2) discover the root causes of those patterns, and 3) rally
collective power to demand structural change.

It’s wonderful that men are learning to shut up,
make space, and listen. But next we need to learn how to raise hell.

Team Syntegrity 2017 Light blue group.

This was a response to
a Goethe Institut invitation to comment, July 2017.